General Strategy
Here is general play advice that applies no matter what Game Mode you're playing. For tips on specific pieces of equipment, visit the article about that item. For instance, for tips on using a tank (or fighting against one), visit the Tank article. To get strategies for the different game modes, visit the article about that game mode. For instance, for tips on playing Collection, visit the Collection article. Basic Advice (for newer players) For Everyone (the most common/useful/important tips are near the top) *'Know your basics' - Make sure you're familiar with all the Tips For New Players, especially the ones about stealth, & avoiding stealth and long-range & sniper attacks. *'Use your mike!' - Are you in your home base and someone keeps sniping you guys? Get on the mike and say "someone please kill the sniper on the mountain northwest of home base". Is your second-to-last base about to be taken (leaving you with 1...potential Base Ravage)? Get on the mike and say "people come help save base #3 now". If a tank is completely taking apart one of your bases, let people know. etc. Since some people can't read the base #'s even on an HDTV, you may wish to describe your location rather than use the base # (i.e.--"our top left base", "northwest base", etc). And when someone asks for help, if you can help, acknowledge their call. *'Tweak your settings' - You may wish to adjust things like Aim speed, etc. *'Don't waste a lock-on missile' - Whether you're a ground-pounder or a pilot, if you have a missile locked-on to an enemy and they move out of range, behind an obstacle, etc, you don't have to release the trigger & waste the missile. Just use your d-pad and switch to a different weapon before releasing the trigger. If you've got an RPG locked-on, just switch to your knife or anything, & release the trigger. If you time it right, you can switch from RPG to your rifle and release without ever firing a shot from any weapon. If you're a pilot, well you might have to switch to chaff or swarms and waste one, but that's better than wasting a Homing Missile. *'Prevent air inferiority' - Your team is in for a world of hurt if the enemy rules the skies (potential Base Ravage). :*If you're a pilot - Get in the air quickly and stay there (or go back up when you're killed) :*If you're a grounder - You need to shoot enemy Air Mines (either the spiked "red reamers" or the rounded "blue balloons") whenever you see them, and do use the Rocket Launcher or an anti-air turret from time to time to put pressure on enemy warhawks. Even if you don't kill them, if they're busy dodging you've disrupted their attack and possibly opened a window for a friendly warhawk to kill them while they're occupied with you. Heck, you may even kill someone with their own air mine. *'Keep moving' - Standing still is a recipe for getting killed. Also, killing someone then staying in the same spot can also be dangerous...they may come back and look for you in that exact same spot. *'Capture bases' - In all Game Modes where you can capture bases, keep doing so (maybe plant some mines so they're harder to re-take)! These give you more vehicles to work with, and give you more freedom for moving around. Your team is at a big disadvantage if you're ever whittled-down to a single base (potential Base Ravage). Break-out past enemy lines, find a base that you can take over to give your team more options, more spawn points, and more vehicles. In Capture the Flag, make a run on their flag even if you expect to fail. Putting pressure on their home base can make them fall back into a more defensive mode. When a base has been captured, consider rushing to it, or suiciding and respawning there. Going there you can help secure the hold on the base, use it's equipment, use it as a launching point to attack other locations (including the base you just left). *'Hold the middle base!' - If the map layout you're on has a "middle" base, it can often be crucial in winning the game to control that middle base. For instance, that base may have an extra-large allotment of warhawks on it, and the team with the most access to the most weapons/vehicles often can use that to their advantage. *'Signal for rides' - If someone's about to get in a jeep, tank, warhawk, etc, or is driving by, or has landed near you, if you'd like a ride, shoot their vehicle with your pistol (a pistol won't hurt it, even on servers with Friendly Fire enabled) *'Learn "sign language"' - Teammates that don't have mics may still try to communicate with you. Be aware and figure-out what they want. There's already a tip in here about signalling for rides. There are other common practices. Like if a friendly warhawk lands near you and keeps bumping at you and blocking you, they want you to get in. You can refuse to, but maybe there's a good reason you should. If you're holding cores and someone is shooting at you (on a server with Friendly Fire off), they probably want you to pass your cores to them. etc. *'Don't give gifts to the enemy' :*Keep enemy vehicles - If an enemy leaves a vehicle at your base (especially warhawks, especially your home base), don't just destroy it. If it came from one of their bases, now it'll respawn back there and they'll use it again against you. Leave it be, maybe a teammate will repair it and use it against the enemy. Otherwise, it will eventually self-destruct and respawn, but until then the enemy is deprived of it's use. :*"Return" what you're done with - If you've taken a vehicle from one of your own bases (especially your home base), if you're "done" with it, destroy it, so it can quickly respawn back at home. :*Don't give away vehicles - If you take a vehicle to an enemy base (especially warhawks, especially their home base), don't leave it there. They may use it against your team. Either take it away with you, or, if you don't want it anymore, destroy it so it respawns back home. *'Steal from the enemy' - If you don't think you can take an enemy base (or don't have time), it's still a good thing when you can get weapon pickups or vehicles from their base...you deprive them of the use. *'Don't steal from teammates' - If a teammate is standing next to "his" tank repairing it, or a pilot is standing on "his" warhawk while he's capturing a base (you can't capture a base while sitting inside a warhawk), don't steal it! Wait long enough to make sure someone no longer wants "his" ride before you take it! *'Move out!' - The first minute of a game can often be crucial, a time when key bases can be taken to put the enemy at a disadvantage. So unless you're going to be a defender (and not many of those are needed usually), get out of home right away and start capturing & defending bases. Run right to a warhawk or a jeep and get moving. If you think you're a bad pilot, let someone else fly the plane with you as passenger. *'Suicide' - Some do this (use Start:Suicide, or jump off a cliff, toss a grenade, etc) to cheat another player of a kill, but it's a good tactic for some situations. See a critical base going down in Zones? Suicide & re-spawn there. Have a hard-to-get pickup (binoculars) & expect to die soon? Jump off a cliff so the enemy doesn't get the binocs. Of course, if the enemy is using a bug and shooting you from underground, etc, then you probably should suicide and deny them the kill. *'Don't win too quickly' - If you're playing, say, Zones, and have captured all the bases, if the game ends in under 10 min. you guys don't earn the 50pt winning team ribbon. If you want that, draw the game out, ease off, slack-off on earning points so the game lasts 10 min. *'What damages what?' - Most things in Warhawk can damage most others things. A few items can't. Here's the list of what can't hurt certain things: :*Knife can't hurt any vehicle except knifing jeep occupants, & can't hurt any turrets except the guy in a machine-gun turret :*Pistols can't hurt any vehicles or anti-air turrets (can hurt people in machine-gun turrets) :*Automatic Rifle & sniper rifle can't hurt a tank or an anti-air turret For Grounders (the most common/useful/important tips are near the top) *'Ground combat tips' - There are a bunch in Tips For New Players *'Don't steal body bags' - Don't steal Body Bags. If you weren't part of a fight, if your health is fine and you're reasonably well-armed, don't swoop in and take all the body bags. Your teammates that WERE in the fight need to get some health back, and they've earned the right to those weapons too, you haven't. *'Share weapons' - If you have an RPG with 4 shots left in it and your base is under attack or you guys are attempting to mount an attack on another base, when the RPG pickup re-spawns don't immediately pick it up and top-off your ammo unless you really need it. Otherwise you've just wasted 4 rocket pickups. Better for you to have 4 shots and your teammate to have 6, than for you to have 6 and him to have none. *'Don't waste time shopping' - Don't spend all your time gathering weapons unless you know what you're doing. You only need the right weapons for the job you plan to do. Once you get good, you can do a lot with just your default pistol & 2 grenades. With 4 more grenades plus a rifle, you can go attack a base and either capture it or at least do a lot of damage. Yes, the more you have at your disposal the more options you have...but until you're good enough, most of the time if you gather a bunch of weapons all that means is that you waste a lot of time gathering weapons, and when you die (soon), someone else gets your full pack of weapons. Most of the time you should just grab grenades, a rifle, anything else that is IMMEDIATELY convenient...and then go do something useful for your team. You can get more weapons from people you kill, and if you see a threat that you don't have the right weapon to deal with, then you can go find that weapon and proceed. *'Don't leave empty vehicles parked near the base capture point' - If you leave empty jeeps & tanks parked near the base's capture point, you're just begging for a pilot to swoop down, hop in, then start capturing the base while defending the capture point *'Squads are better' - You're more effective when it's 2, 3, or more of you together. A lone troop has a rough road when facing a tank or warhawk, and taking a base is easier when you outnumber the enemy. *'Jumping while shooting' - Some people jump while shooting. This can break the other guy's "sticky" aim...however, it can also break yours, so you'll have to decide if/when you want to do this. A good time to do it might be when you need to re-load. *'Change positions' - If you've just sniped someone, just shot down a warhawk, just defended a base from an attack...you should probably change positions. Otherwise the enemy may come back looking for you where you just were. You don't want to be an easy airstrike target, sniper target, etc. *'Use landmines against warhawks' - If you're defending a base, you might wish to put landmines at high points near your position...so if a warhawk comes down and hovers over you trying to kill you, you can lead him toward where a mine is and boom! *'Don't shoot the jeep's gun without good reason!!!' - Jeeps get shown on the map when they're firing...so don't fire and be stealthy unless you have good reason. Also, if you're just cruising down a road to somewhere, don't shoot at warhawks just zipping by. You won't hurt them much, and if they decide to come after you, if they're good pilots, you'll probably all get killed. Shoot only at targets that it makes sense to engage, or that you must engage. *'Don't lose control of your vehicles' - If you're in a situation where enemies are coming to your base and using your warhawks and tanks against you, and using your Land Mine pickups and dropping mines all over your base, fight back. Work together to take down the warhawks and tanks. Put mines near your vehicle spawn points, your Land Mine spawn point, etc. *'Bad pilot? Fly anyway' - If the enemy has air superiority and you're a bad pilot, you're probably best on the ground trying to shoot the enemy down. But there may be situations where, if there are planes to spare, you can help most by getting in the air and try to shoot down some enemies. You may lose, but you may also distract an enemy long enough for a teammate to kill them. You could also learn how to drop Air Mines at valuable weapon pickups, sneaky areas around your home base, etc. For Pilots (the most common/useful/important tips are near the top) *'Don't leave teammates stranded' - On maps where the team starts on an island, or a home base with few warhawks, if you're taking a warhawk, there's rarely enough to go around, check to see if anyone's following you to it looking for a ride (or shooting at you with a pistol). If too many teammates are stuck behind stranded, your team will only suffer since they may have little useful to do in the game until they can get off. *'Be a good taxi' - If you're giving someone a ride, unless there's a "rare" pickup you want to rush and get right away (like the TOW), generally speaking as soon as possible you should be taking your passenger somewhere useful...an empty warhawk, an empty base for you 2 to capture together, the mainland, etc. *'Beware the Warhawk "controller tax"' - If you fly a lot, and talk a lot, some have found that pressing L3 a lot wears their controller out a lot faster. You may want to use Open Mic, but keep the sensitivity down or you'll be muted for sending too much static. *'Use Air Mines' - Use Air Mines, drop them at valuable weapon pickups, sneaky areas around your home base, etc. Advanced Strategy (for veterans) For Everyone *'Add a tip!' - Add your tip here For Grounders *'Use dumpsters '- To learn all about how to get inside and use certain dumpsters for cover/camouflage, visit the article about Dumpsters. *'Rocket Launchers' - Remember, if you get the Rocket Launcher you can easily take down a warhawk. Most of the time you don't even need to kill him, any smart pilot will usually flee the area to keep from dieing, leaving you time to gather yourself and continue with what you were doing. *'Flak Turrets' - Many people under-estimate these things. They kill tanks & Warhawks very quickly actually, just be sure to jump out when you reload, because they take a while to reload. For Pilots *'Air strategy video (sugaboo on Archipelago)' - See a great video here on air strategy, by sugaboo. Some ideas on how to use your warhawk to help your team win. This was done on Archipelago, but many of the concepts work for any map. These tips are good regardless of what Flight Mode you use. *'Deploying air mines' - Do not deploy air mines while using your afterburner as it will suicide you. Also if enemy missiles are closing-in on you and they (the missiles) are too close, they will blow up the mine you just deployed & blow you up too. *'Air mine traps' - Everybody wants TOW missiles so I always plant mines in close proximity to their pick up point. Try to place them out of sight so that when the enemy comes to get it, they blow up at the same point that they see the mine, in other words, too late! Also, plant air mines near the health pickup so the enemy has to stop to blow it up, thereby giving you a few seconds of sitting-still target time to destroy them. *'Destroying turrets' - Swarm & homing missiles will lock onto turrets so use that to your advantage. Just be aware that the missile turret is most likely locking onto you as you lock onto him/her, so be ready to deploy chaff to thwart their missiles. Use 1 homing missile + machine gun fire to destroy a turret. 1 homing missile is not enough usually. Swarms take 5-8 to destroy a missile turret. *'Using swarms' - I use swarm missiles very effectively and constantly! I launch 1 or 2 initially so they deploy chaff, then I set loose about 5-8 on them, usually destroying them, as they have a certain period of time before they can deploy chaff again. *'Ground prep' - Use the lightning gun or clusterbombs on the ground if you want to land there, or want to clear an area so your team can grab the base or a flag. This clears out enemies and land mines. *Air mine back- When a enemy warhawk is chasing right behind you, throw a air mine and it will either kill him or make him stop directly and will now watch where he is going. Category:Game Help and Tips